Page 53

"I think it's moving. Oh yeah, it's definitely moving. I can feel it. Do you want to touch it?"

I glance sideways at Kayden, the light from my headlamp painting his face red. "Not if you're going to be annoying about it."

"Come on, Nyx. Touch my telescope. Put your hand right here, baby. Oh yeah."

If I weren't actually curious, I would refuse on principle. But I've never seen a telescope that moves itself before, so I lean over his lap and press a finger lightly to its side, worried I might damage something if I press too hard. The glossy black aluminum of the tube is chilly, even on this June night.

As I hold my finger perfectly still, the telescope swivels away from it. "That is so cool."

"Right? The women from the astronomy society who set this all up for me preprogrammed dozens of objects for us to look at, but I want us to see this one first."

"Why? What's special about this one?"

Kayden stays silent for the few seconds it takes the telescope to get into position. Then he rises to his knees, trying to control his smile. His breath catches as he puts his eye to the eyepiece. "Come here and see." He tugs on my hand like I'm not already next to him.

I gasp when I see it. A perfect spiral galaxy. "It's my ring." I lean back and hold my hand out in front of me, comparing the spiral bands of diamonds around the emerald with what I just saw. It could be an exact match.

"Look again."

I press my eye back to the eyepiece and notice the cluster of stars at the end of one of the spiral arms.

"It's us, Nyx. Millions of years ago, those two galaxies bumped into each other, and they've been caught in each other's orbit ever since. Dancing through all that time as they merge to make a galaxy better than either of them could be individually. A super galaxy."

"Is that what we're doing?" I put my hand over his and trace my thumb over the bumps of his knuckles. "Forming a super galaxy."

"Just think of the things we can do."

"Oh, I'm thinking of all kinds of things we could do." I slip my thumb between two of his fingers, sliding it in and out.

"Nyx!" He presses his other palm flat across the front of the Tucci Cup. "She's just a baby. You can't do things like that in front of her!"

"Isn't that trophy over one-hundred years old?"

"That's even worse! That's like talking dirty in front of your great-great-grandma. Lucky for you, I planned for just this moment." He peels back a corner of the blanket and pulls out what looks like a bath towel. Giving the Cup a kiss first, he carefully drapes the towel over its top. "There. Now she can't see or hear us."

I sit back, my heels pressing up into my ass. "I'm in love with the biggest dork in the entire universe."

"Maybe not the biggest, but the most impressive. The M51 Whirlpool Galaxy of Dorks." He turns toward me, moving on his hands and knees until his face is less than an inch away from mine. "And we're caught in each other's orbit now, so it's too late for either of us."

"Nothing left but to dance and merge?" I stroke a finger down the bristly side of his face to his chin.

"That's possibly the least romantic way of saying it, but yes. Now, on your back for me, Nyx. I want you to see real stars while we do this, not just the ones you'll see when I make you come."

I roll my eyes as I lie back and stare up, expecting him to move with me, but he doesn't.

"What are you doing?" I lean up and find him attaching something to the side of the telescope. "That's not the kind of screwing I hoped you'd be doing this evening."

"Very funny." He finishes whatever he's doing and goes back to the laptop for a moment before closing its lid and turning toward me. "All set."

"Yes," I sigh. "I've been all set."

"Not you." He pushes my legs aside and crawls between them, his arms on either side of me. "I meant the camera. Another thing the women from the Astronomical Society set up for me. There's even a tracking system to make adjustments. Just in case we move the Earth."

"Oh my god, I hope you didn't tell them that. Sometimes it's best to keep that gorgeous mouth of yours closed."

He lets just a little of his weight press down on me as his lips find mine and draw a line to the crook of my neck. "So you admit that my lips are gorgeous?" He bites me. Hard. Even though he blows cool night air across the skin right away, it still stings, and I know I'll have a mark tomorrow. A mark I'll wear with pride.

"Every part of you is gorgeous," I murmur, slipping my hands between us. My fingers find the waistband of his pants and slide underneath.

"Just like you," he moans, cupping my breast. "We're two perfect, gorgeous galaxies dancing and merging."

"Fine, you win," I concede. "That's not a very romantic line, but I do have a soft spot for the whole idea of merging." My hand inches toward his dick, the warmth building as I get closer. When I finally wrap my hand around it, the heat pours into me. "And it feels like you have a hard spot for it."

He kneads my breast and moves his hips forward, pushing himself through the opening made by my hand. "I'll always have a hard spot for you, Nyx."

My hand is too small to close completely around him, but when I squeeze his base, it's still enough to cause him to stumble. He has to use both hands to support himself as I pull my hands away from him, sliding them back up my body, moving one to my breast to pick up where he left off. I move the other to my mouth and trail my middle finger along the seam of my lips, letting the smell of him fill my nostrils before I slip the finger into my mouth. His eyes are locked on mine as I take it so deep my nail scrapes my tonsils.

I never thought it was possible to love someone as much as I love this man. Everything about him pulls me in. The warmth of his body pressing against mine. His voice that helps me find my ground every time I lose it. The way he always knows how to make me laugh. His devotion to everyone he cares for. That look he gives me—the one that tells me I'm his entire world.

I'll spend my entire life showing him that he's mine too.

I lift my hips, pushing up into him, then tilting them back to grind against him. "Kayden..."

"You don't have to say another word, Nyx." He practically rips his pants off before moving his hands up the sides of my thighs and hips, hooking his fingers under my waistband and shimmying them down, one inch at a time. The right side, then the left. So slow I think I'll be older than the stars above us by the time he has them low enough. But he must lose patience because he yanks them the rest of the way to my knees with one pull. With one more, they're completely off. I spread my legs and moan as the air hits me.

"That's my girl. Always ready for me."

"Ready." I breathe and reach for him, but he stays just out of reach as he coats himself in slick lube. I keep my eyes on his as he moves back into place, but as soon as he parts me, I look over his shoulder at the sky filled with stars. I stare up as he pushes further into me. Stretching me. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him in further. My body rocks in rhythm with his now, and I'm losing control of my voice as my whimpers grow into moans and then screams.

"That's it, baby. I want them to hear you all the way down at the base of this mountain." He groans as he drives into me. "All the way back home in Salt Lake."

I reach behind him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. Lifting it and exposing his back. I slap my palm against his bare skin and curl my hand, digging my fingernails into him and desperately trying to hold on as he pushes me further and further.

Above me, the stars seem to flicker and flare. Then they all blur as a fusion reaction starts in my core and erupts uncontrollably outward. He's moving in me, flaring his hips as he does, and driving me so far that the stars all merge into a multicolor blanket above me before my vision goes black. I pull in desperate breaths, trying to regain control of myself. Then I feel him tense. A warmth spreads inside me and our movements take on a new slick sound.

"How is every time better than the last with you?" he asks between panted breaths.

I use a leg to guide him onto the ground beside me, and I roll on top of him. "Not too bad for two galaxies who just happened to bump into each other before deciding to merge, right?"

He brushes his lips over mine. "Nothing about this 'just happened.' It was always going to be us, Nyx. Together as the stars watched." He presses a finger to the middle of my forehead and then glides it to the side, looping around my ear and down to my lips. "I want to show you something."

He stretches an arm to the right, reaching. I start to lift myself up from him, but as soon as I do, he hooks his other arm around me and pulls me back down. "I never want you to move," he whispers as his hand floats down the small of my back. "I love feeling you on top of me. I just need another inch to reach that laptop."

I gasp. "The great Kayden Bouchard admits that he needs another inch?"

"You tell me, Nyx. Am I not enough for you?"

I shift to the side, still on top of him, but giving him the extra reach he needs. "You're exactly enough for me. I could never want more."

He kisses the tip of my nose and then turns his attention to the laptop. "Look at it."

On the screen, there's a picture of the Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion. Brighter and more detailed than anything I saw through the telescope. I can see the individual clouds of stars and dust spiraling around the center, punctuated by bright dots in every shade of white lining the rings. And there's the bright clustered stars of its companion. Two galaxies pulling each other closer, refusing to be without the other. "It's beautiful. Where did you get this?"

"We took it. Just now. A time-lapse photograph of our galaxies merging as we merged down here below them. I'm having this blown up and hanging it above our headboard. Every night as we get into bed, I want this to be the last thing we see before we look into each other's eyes. I want us to see this and know that we're together forever, just like these galaxies."

"Does this mean I'm never getting rid of you?" I tease as I turn back to him, nibbling the sensitive skin under his ear.

"Never."

"Good." I scoot lower until I can rest my head on his chest, and we lie like that until my eyelids get heavy with sleep. "Promise me we'll find a place to look at the stars next week."

We fly to South Carolina Monday morning for a week with his mom. She and Kayden have been texting more often recently, and I think he's beginning to consider giving her one more chance.

"I promise. We will."

I close my eyes as he leans up and kisses the top of my head.